Jeff Carpenter is a musician and songwriter with the all Native American orchestral rock band Injunuity.Wesley Mahan: "Injunuity: Not your grandfather’s flute music", ''Native American Times'', http://nativetimes.com/index.php/life/entertainment/3036-injunuity-not-your-grandfathers-flute-music, Published on Monday, February 8, 2010.Tony Choate, Chickasaw Nation Media Relations Office: ''Heart and Soul, Injunuity serves up hot licks and cool tunes as popularity goes global'', https://www.chickasaw.net/Special-Pages/Print.aspx?printpath=/News/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/Heart-and-Soul&classname=custom.chickasawpressrelease, Release Date: October 3, 2013.Dana Lance, Media Relations Specialist: ''Indian music group names Chickasaw band named top new act'', Chickasaw Nation Media Relations Office, http://www.chickasaw-government-nsn.gov/newsroom/index_5770_3746354444443435373642383443424141303644344237333430363144333845.htm, Release Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2008.

Career

Carpenter, who is of

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classified as ...

ancestry, began playing music while in

grade school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

in his home town of

Ada, Oklahoma Ada is a city in and the county seat of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,481 at the 2020 United States Census. The city was named for Ada Reed, the daughter of an early settler, and was incorporated in 1901. Ada is ...

, with acoustic guitar as his primary instrument, adding bass guitar,

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, electric guitar, and the saxophone to his repertoire as his interests expanded. In 2007, he was invited by

Mississippi Choctaw The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians ( cho, Mississippi Chahta) is one of three federally recognized tribes of Choctaw Native Americans, and the only one in the state of Mississippi. On April 20, 1945, this tribe organized under the Indian Re ...

composer and

flutist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with Reed (instrument), reeds, a fl ...

Brad Clonch to join him in playing

Native American music Indigenous music of North America, which includes American Indian music or Native American music, is the music that is used, created or performed by Indigenous peoples of North America, including Native Americans in the United States and Abori ...

for the

Chickasaw Nation The Chickasaw Nation (Chickasaw language, Chickasaw: Chikashsha I̠yaakni) is a federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe, with its headquarters located in Ada, Oklahoma in th ...

Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He and Clonch began playing shows around Oklahoma, adding other members to round out a band, which they dubbed "Injunuity".Carrie Buckley: "Rising Indian Band 'Injunuity' to perform in Europe", ''Chickasaw Times'', March 2013, http://digital.turn-page.com/issue/20177/9, p. 10.Gene Lehmann: "Native band 'Injunuity' finds receptive listeners on Swiss tour", ''Chickasaw Times'', September 2013, http://digital.turn-page.com/i/165957/17, p. 18. The group soon branched out to playing venues across the country, in Alabama, New Mexico, and Wisconsin.Native News Network Staff in Entertainment: ''Injunuity Signs CD Pact with Record Company'', http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/injunuity-signs-cd-pact-with-record-company.html, posted August 30, 2013. In July 2013, they headlined the 5th annual Apache Moon Festival in Semione, Switzerland at the invitation of the concert's director. Injunuity's sound is based on a melding of Carpenter's and Clonch's backgrounds, combining traditional and modern themes, and string orchestra and piano with modern drums and electric guitar to cover several genres of music, from

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

to Rock to Classical. Carpenter and Clonch primarily compose their own songs, utilizing

digital recording In digital recording, an audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is saved to a storage de ...

to produce some of their more complex compositions. Clonch plays the

Native American flute The Native American flute is a flute that is held in front of the player, has open finger holes, and has two chambers: one for collecting the breath of the player and a second chamber which creates sound. The player breathes into one end of the ...

and

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

and Carpenter lead guitar and

alto sax The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

, with James Monroe on trumpet, Robbie Blair on bass guitar, and Ashton Booth on

. The group's most recent addition is vocals by

native and

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

recording artist Brittany Dawn. Since Native Americans in previous centuries didn’t have recording technology and many of their songs were lost, a primary goal of Injunuity is to help keep the musical aspect of Native American culture alive through the music of tribal instruments, as well as educating non-Natives about Native Americans and music within their culture.Chickasaw Arts & Humanities: ''Jeff Carpenter, Chickasaw Guitarist'', http://www.chickasaw.tv/arts/document/jeff-carpenter-profile, accessed December 1, 2013.

Discography

* ''Unconquered'' (2007) * ''Fight for Survival'' (2010) * ''Nativity — Christmas with Injunuity'' (2011) * ''Spirits'' (2012) The full-length EP ''Fight for Survival'' has been selected by Phoenix-based

Canyon Records Canyon Records of Phoenix, Arizona is a record label that has produced and distributed Native American music for 56 years. History Canyon was founded in 1951 by Ray and Mary Boley, who had opened the first recording studio in Phoenix, Arizona ...

for re-release nationally and internationally.

Awards

Carpenter has won several Native American Music Awards, called "

Nammy The Native American Music Awards (also known as the NAMAs or "Nammys") are an awards program presented annually by Elbel Productions, Inc., The Native American Music Awards Inc., and The Native American Music Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profi ...

s," equivalent to mainstream music's

Grammys The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

. In 2008, he and Clonch won a

for Best Debut Group of the Year at the 10th annual Native American Music Awards, presented for the band's first EP release ''Unconquered''. In 2010 the band's third CD ''Fight for Survival'' won Carpenter and Clonch a

for Songwriters of the Year. They have also been nominated in the

Best Instrumental Recording category and recently considered for Best Alternative Native Rock Album in the Indian Summer Music Awards.

References

External links

Video: Jeff Carpenter: "Profiles of a Nation"

Video: Injunuity music video, CNTV, January 1, 2011Jeff Carpenter Profile and Videos
Chickasaw.TV * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carpenter, Jeff Living people 21st-century American guitarists 21st-century Native Americans American male guitarists American male songwriters Chickasaw people Guitarists from Oklahoma Native American songwriters Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American male musicians